


A Day in the Life of an Average High School Principal

by tawg



Series: The Dangers of Dating a High School Principal [7]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: M/M, Principal Coulson, a terrible horrible no good very bad day, bookwyrm, here be dragons, paperwork is super important
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-06
Updated: 2012-08-06
Packaged: 2017-11-11 13:34:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/479085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tawg/pseuds/tawg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Angry parents, dragons roaming the halls, and visits from secret government organisations – the worrying thing is how normal it all seems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Day in the Life of an Average High School Principal

**Author's Note:**

> It has been pointed out to me that, as a series, it is quite hard to download the story so far as a pdf. I'll put a pdf of the whole story up if/when it's completed, but if you download fics to read later and I could make your life more convenient by making pdfs of every five or ten stories, please let me know in the comments :)

Philip Coulson, principal of Crosstown High, was looking forward to the weekend. He had been catching the subway home with Gregory every evening, adding another hour to his own commute, but physics teachers were hard to come by and Gregory was a sensitive soul under the distorted physique and hamster fuzz. If he needed a friend to escort him home and ensure that hoodlums kept their opinions to themselves, Phil would provide.

Then he had been getting to school as early as possible, using the few hours before students started roaming the halls to get Boryn caught up with the school policy on chasing children down and hording their mobile phones. Boryn was a fast learner, but some habits died hard.

That morning Phil had arrived before six, after a call from the janitor alerting him to a leak in the first floor girls’ bathroom. There was just enough water to make walking on the linoleum hazardous and the carpet squish underfoot. Boryn had already moved all of the books from the lower shelves into precarious piles on the tables in the library, coiling around the large room and hissing at the slow creep of water. Mister Zafon, the janitor, assured Phil that it would be inappropriate for him to go into the girls’ bathroom and investigate. There was a separate cleaner for such things (Misses Zafon, in fact, who came in for a few hours every second day) and he would not be having with poking about where he didn’t belong.

So Phil got the glorious task of wading into the bathroom, turning off a tap that had been left running all night, and shifting the sodden science textbook that had blocked the drain in the floor. Then he had the thrilling experience of clearing a mess of tampon wrappers and cigarette butts out of the drain of the sink with the end of a pencil. That was why Phil had taken the leap from teaching to being an administrator – the glamour.

Phil helped to mop up the mess, did his best to avoid thinking about whether the tap running all night would have an impact on the water bill, and then had to spend a good twenty minutes convincing Boryn that a damp floor would not destroy the wyrm’s horde of books before pjr would come down from the shelves and stop hissing aggressively at the puddles. Then it took another hour of pats and scratches before Boryn stopped threatening to wage battle against the water sprites that had caused the deluge. Phil tried to explain water mains and utilities and communal responsibilities regarding the use of such in public buildings, but Boryn was nuzzling his hip by that point and Phil was certain that none of it was sinking in.

By the time the bell rang for the start of the school day Phil had wet feet, scales on his pants, was short a pencil, and had not yet managed to have his morning coffee.

“If you’d followed doctor’s orders and stayed home this week,” Nina, the school secretary, said while pointing an accusing finger, “you could be sitting on your couch eating bagels. You brought this on yourself.”

“You’re the one who called me and told me to come in this week,” Phil felt obliged to point out.

“You’re the one who went and hired a _dragon_.”

“Touché,” Phil replied. “Though Boryn is a wyrm. Dragons have a different number of-”

“I swear to god, Phil, if you try to stuff that Animal Planet stuff down my throat I am changing the staff coffee order to decaf and spreading the rumour that you did it to cut costs.”

Phil gave Nina a wounded look. “Sorry,” she said with a heavy sigh. “The neighbour’s dog is still barking through the night. If the mutt doesn’t learn some manners, I’m going to turn it into stew.”

“As a community figurehead, I can’t condone that action,” Phil said seriously.

Nina swatted at him with a copy of the school newsletter. “I’ll be sure to let the cops know you suggested it. Any word from your boy toy yet?”

Phil tried for a smile, and missed. “No,” he said. “Not yet.”

“I’m sure he’s just busy,” Nina said. “Government job and all that.”

“Of course.”

“And if he’s just being a jerk, my flatmate has this cousin–”

Phil turned away from the conversation and retreated into his office. Dating co-workers was one thing – in fact, in education circles it was pretty much normal – but getting set up with flatmates’ cousins was a one-way ticket on the scandal train. No matter how good the cousin looked in skinny leg jeans. Phil was certain that he was too old to be dating anyone who identified as a hipster, anyway.

Phil Coulson was forty-six. He lived alone with his cat (who hadn’t been talking to him since Boryn came on the scene and he’d started coming home smelling of wyrm). He needed a cane to walk long distances. He had probably been dumped. 

But Phil also had performance reviews to write, and applications from the student council to review, and just before lunch one student broke another student’s nose via the high-velocity application of a physics textbook to the face.

The glamour and the excitement really made the job worthwhile.

Interviewing Katelyn Beaver went as smoothly as Phil expected. A sobbing, bleeding, angry girl who was so used to being in the right that it didn’t occur to her to choose her words carefully. The second interviewee, Bonnie Jackson, was quiet and sullen. She had both elbows on the arm rests of the chair she sat in, broadening her posture and holding her head high. Phil wrote out a one-week suspension for Bonnie and sent her to sit out in the office until the final bell rang, because he wouldn’t tolerate violence in his school.

He suspended Katelyn for three weeks, because he didn’t like bullies.

Of course, Phil was barely halfway through typing up his report on the incident when Mister Beaver arrived, full of righteous indignation that his baby girl was being further victimised by a corrupt school system. Nina, despite making a hobby of teasing Phil, was a small woman and easily startled by loud noises (which was why she got along so well with Phil – he made of point of speaking quietly, letting words have impact rather than placing the importance on volume). Phil had an understanding that it was turning out to be a very emotional day for Katelyn Beaver et al, but that was not reasonable cause for people to yell at his secretary.

“Mister Beaver,” he said, placing himself in the doorway to his office, “I understand you wish to speak with me?”

While Beaver was a large man, the office space was made cramped by a man in a long black coat who was leaning against the office wall and watching Mister Beaver with something too detached to be boredom. He turned his attention to Phil, and Phil saw that the man had an eyepatch. Sitting neatly on one of the visitors' seats, with his hands clasped in his lap, was Clint. Well, it looked like Phil’s day was just going to keep getting more and more interesting.

He glanced over at Nina, who was looking significantly calmer since she had stopped being the focus of attention. “Mister Fury has an appointment to see you at one-thirty,” she said primly.

Phil looked at the man in the coat, who nodded his head in acknowledgement. “Take your time, Mister Coulson,” he said. 

“Thank you, Director,” Phil returned. He’d spent some time on the SHIELD website in recent weeks, and while there were no photos of Director Nick Fury and only a handful of mentions, Phil could recognise the stance of a man who had a lot of power behind him. The way Clint’s mouth twitched and cast the hint of proud amusement over his face let Phil know that he’d guessed correctly.

Before Phil was able to resume his seat, Mister Beaver planted one hand at the middle of his desk and leaned over it, shoving his finger in Coulson’s face. Phil decided to remain standing.

“I want to know why the hell my little girl is getting suspended for being attacked in the halls of _your_ school!”

“She’s not suspended for being a victim of a violent attack. She’s suspended for being an unrepentant bully who has been ostracising and humiliating a fellow student since the beginning of the year,” Phil replied evenly. “Also, it’s not ‘my’ school. I don’t own it.”

“Well I sure as hell don’t know what you’re doing here then, but this is not acceptable!”

“Inside voice, please,” Phil said, taking his seat behind his desk. “And if you want to know more about the operation of Crosstown High then you are welcome to attend the PTA. Next meeting is the second-to-last Friday of the term. But I really think we should be talking about Katelyn, don’t you?”

Beaver glared at Coulson. “If you don’t drop this nonsense, I’m going to sue.”

Phil bit back a sigh. “If those are the only two options you’re willing to consider, then I think we’re done here.” Beaver seemed surprised, and Phil didn’t blame him. “Engaging in litigation can be a very exhausting process, so I hear. I advise you to discuss the matter with your family. In the meantime, Katelyn’s school work for the next three weeks will be mailed out to her tomorrow. The work will count towards her term grade, so I advise that she put her best efforts towards it. There will be a meeting before she will be allowed to return to classes, in order to discuss what she has taken away from this experience.”

“And what about the fact that she has a broken nose, huh?”

“Well I was rather hoping you’d take her to a doctor, but that decision is really up to you.”

Mister Beaver did not reduce his overall volume as he collected his daughter from the office waiting area, and Phil took a moment to carefully and vividly imagine tazing the man. Not that violence ever helped such emotional problems. Doing so would be antagonistic and irresponsible. But it _was_ a mildly soothing image. Phil’s shoes were still wet from the small flood that morning and he could feel a blister forming at his heel, so he shot Nina an e-mail asking her to send Fury in for his appointment. 

“This won’t take long, Mister Coulson,” Director Fury said as he ambled into Phil’s office. Long strides with his hands tucked into the pockets of his pants, his long black coat pushed back so that it trailed after him like the tail of an especially morbid peacock. “I just need to apprise you of what will be happening to that dragon of yours.”

“I don’t own a dragon,” Phil replied, leaning back in his seat. He didn’t offer Fury a seat and the director didn’t take one of his own accord. He remained standing, smiling down at Phil like they were having a pleasant conversation, and Phil knew this man expected to have a pleasant conversation only because he was intending to get his own way.

“I wonder if the inventory of your library would show different?”

“Boryn in a wyrm, not a dragon,” Phil replied. “Wyrms have a minimum of six legs and the reproductive cycle is different.” He met Fury’s one-eyed stare and held it. “And I do not _own_ Boryn.”

“That’s right,” Fury said, his mouth splitting into a sharp, white grin. “You’re just keeping it under your roof under the pretence that you’ve employed it.”

“Actually,” Phil replied, pulling out a desk drawer and searching for the relative file, “Boryn is engaged in an exchange of services as part of an integratory training program until the application for residency in this realm is approved.”

Fury’s smile lost some of its brightness, and Phil pressed on.

“However, I’m aware that the inter-realm residency assessment committee is already bogged down trying to get some legislation drafted and will be unable to consider Boryn’s application for some time. Thankfully, there is an asylum tribunal for the state of New York meeting Thursday-week and we have managed to submit the thirteen forms required to solicit an interview to assess the possibility of emergency asylum, which thankfully also means that Boryn has been granted personhood in this realm until that tribunal, and throughout the duration of the asylum assessment process and any appeals that we may make, of which we are permitted five.”

Fury was no longer smiling.

“But I’m sure you must already know this. I submitted the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division online form for Notification of an Extraterrestrial Entity Twelve-B on Monday morning.”

“The twelve-B,” Fury repeated.

“And attached all relevant documentation. And had the hard copy couriered to the state division office.”

Principal Coulson and Director Fury regarded one another for a long, tense moment. Phil finally allowed one corner of his mouth to twitch up in the smallest of smiles, and Director Fury leaned back and let out a long, lazy belly-laugh. “I bet you have the signed delivery docket, don’t you?”

“And a printout of the ‘successful submission’ page with the incident identification number.”

Fury’s face settled back into a smile, but now it was a grin that made him seem warm and mischievous. “I didn’t even know we _had_ a twelve-B.”

“I’m an administrator,” Coulson replied. “I have a nose for these things.”

Fury tilted his head to one side, his grin softening into something roguish as he reassessed Coulson. “I bet you do,” he said warmly, before stepping towards the door. “It seems that everything here is above board, and out of my jurisdiction. For the moment.” He shook his head as he reached for the doorhandle. “Well played, agent.”

“I’m not an agent, Director Fury,” Phil replied.

Fury paused with his hand on the doorhandle, an odd little smile on his face. “Of course not, Mister Coulson. My mistake.” And then the director made his exit, leaving the door of Phil’s office wide open. Clint was still sitting in one of the painfully low visitors’ chairs, staring blankly ahead.

Phil smiled politely after the director until he was out of the school office entirely, then pulled out a sheet of paper and made some frantic notes against the hardwood of his desk. He waited for the ink to dry, folded the paper into quarters and slid it into the inside pocket of his jacket. He had a sneaking suspicion that Director Fury wasn’t someone who liked losing an argument. Neither was Phil.

Phil strode through the school office and pointed at Clint without looking at him. “ _Stay_ ,” he instructed, and then headed down the long hallway to the school library. 

The students had taken to Boryn quite well, which hadn’t surprised Phil at all. The current generation hadn’t known a time before superheroes in Kevlar and spandex, and rallies for mutant rights, and debates on television about the wisdom of privately owned and funded meta human response teams. They had spent their whole lives interacting with a world that was strange and wonderful (and, admittedly, worryingly destructive). A bookwyrm turning up in their library was hardly worth commenting on after the first day.

The parents had been commenting though. And some of the staff. And then Nick Fury had come into Phil’s domain and had let Phil know that even people who were at the forefront of this ever-evolving world were still scared of change.

Phil didn’t know how to explain that to Boryn, the beautiful creature who purred when the students tugged on pjr ears and had built a nest under one of the desks out of newspapers and old jackets from the lost and found. Boryn could understand someone trying to steal a horde from wyrm, but not the idea of someone trying to steal the wyrm from the horde. 

“You’re allowed to run,” Phil said, holding Boryn’s face in both of his hands. “If someone wants to take you somewhere and you don’t want to go with them, you can run and hide.”

“I can’t leave the bookssss,” Boryn replied.

“Yes, you can,” Phil said firmly, trying to make the wyrm understand. “If you’re in danger you need to leave the books, and you come and find me.”

The wyrm rumbled uncomfortably, and butted pjr head against Phil’s chest. “Bookssss,” Boryn hissed, wrapping pjr tail tightly around the end of a bookcase. 

Phil hugged the wyrm’s head close, and scratched gently behind one ear. “We’ll talk about this again later,” he promised. Boryn made a content trilling noise and then turned back to the pile of books that needed re-shelving, all distress abandoned in favour of maintaining the horde of knowledge.

Phil wished he could cast off his troubles so easily. Speaking of...

The first thing that had caught Phil’s attention about Clint Barton was the startling dichotomy of his comport. Clint was a person who practiced economy of movement; he would stay loose and still until the exact moment he needed to move, and then he would snap into place. Sometimes it meant watching without blinking as Phil offered to give Hawkeye of all people his phone number, and then moving just his left arm and nothing else so Phil could neatly print his mobile number on the warm skin between elbow and wrist, his smile easy but his eyes never leaving Phil’s face. Sometimes it meant the way he stayed close and constant, allowing Phil to ease away or brush their shoulders together as they waited in line for coffees that they never got to drink.

When Phil strode back into the school office, his mug refilled with coffee and his thigh aching because he was refusing to limp on this day of all days, Clint was sitting still and staring unwaveringly at Nina, who had moved her desk calendar to try and block the weight of his stare.

“Come on,” Phil said tiredly, not slowing down as he headed back into his office. Clint paused before standing up, a pause that Phil felt even with his back to Clint, and that little moment said a lot of things that Phil just wasn’t interested in hearing.

“No suit today,” Phil commented as Clint slid into the empty chair on the other side of his desk.

“No,” Clint agreed, staring down at his splayed thighs. “I’m really not a fan of being stuck in uncomfortable clothes for an uncomfortable conversation. Also, if I’d been working the ‘secret agent’ thing, I think your receptionist might have peed herself from all of the intimidation going on out there.”

“Thank you for thinking of her,” Phil replied drily, and Clint ducked his head a little lower.

“So,” Clint said at last, “I want to apologise.” He stalled there, and Phil rested his chin on the palm of one hand, staring calmly across his desk at Clint who peeked up at him and then dropped his gaze again. “I shouldn’t have run out on you like that. It was a real dick move, and I’m _really_ sorry about my behaviour since then. I, uh, that was wrong.”

Phil digested Clint’s words. It didn’t really contribute much context to their current status, so Phil refrained from making any comment. He drummed his fingers against the top of his desk, a sign that he was waiting for more.

“And the sex,” Clint offered. “I’m sorry that we had really shitty sex. And that I didn’t have the maturity to handle that gracefully. And that I pretty much ran out on you and left you hanging for three whole days.”

Phil, his chin still propped on his palm, took a sip of his coffee. He took a small amount of pleasure in the way Clint cringed under the consistent scrutiny. 

“I... Look, I really like you,” Clint blurted out, still inspecting his knees. “And I don’t know if you’re hurt or pissed or just done with me completely, but I really like you. And I’d really like it if you said something now.”

Phil didn’t move his chin from his palm, but he did soften the lines of his shoulders slightly, swivelled his chair an inch to one side to open up his posture. “I assumed that either the world was ending, or you were being a jerk.”

Clint grimaced. “I was being a jerk.”

“Ah.”

Clint glanced up at Phil again, and narrowed his eyes. “You’re enjoying this,” he accused.

Phil allowed a small smile to grace his lips. “A little,” he admitted.

Clint gave Phil an annoyed look of the ‘what am I going to do with you?’ variety. Phil swivelled his chair slightly back and forth, and met Clint’s expression with serene calmness. “So,” Clint said at last. He relaxed into the moment, lost the cautious tension that he’d carried with him all afternoon. “Are you ditching me or what?”

“Not this time,” Phil replied. He finally shifted, leaning both elbows on his desk and clasping his hands in front of him. “But this is how it works from now on: when we have a problem? You tell me. And then we solve it. Understood?”

Clint nodded solemnly, though Phil could detect a streak of subtle smart-assery when he said, “Yessir.”

“So,” Phil said, picking his mug up again and cradling it in both hands. “How are you going to make it up to me?”

Clint’s mouth quirked, and he shifted so he was sitting on the edge of his chair, his own forearms resting on the edge of Phil’s desk. It felt nice, the diminished distance. “Well, I was going to offer to crawl under your desk and give you a blowjob. Buuuut given the look on your face right now, I’m going to guess you’d turn me down because it’d be inappropriate or something?”

“So very inappropriate.”

“And I should probably abandon all of my sexy schemes involving your office and the school in general?”

“Abandon them right now.”

“Well, okay.” Clint stared at the Captain America mug in Phil’s hands as he considered his options. “We could do dinner?” he offered.

Phil considered the suggestion. “‘Eating take-out on the couch’ dinner, or ‘fancy restaurant’ dinner?”

Clint looked mildly startled, and Phil could have kicked himself. Clint seemed to live on the giant cookies sold in cafes and adrenaline. He didn’t seem like the fancy restaurant type.

“We can do fancy,” Clint said quickly.

“It doesn’t have to be fancy.”

“I can even make a reservation and shit.”

“It doesn’t need to be fancy.”

“No, I get it. It’s a symbol, right? Of a normal, healthy relationship?”

“It’s not a symbol,” Phil insisted. “It’s just dinner.”

Clint quirked his lips like he was biting back a laugh. “This is definitely a symbol,” he said. “Just like going for coffee.”

“Going for coffee wasn’t a symbol.”

“You sure? Because you really had your heart set on going for coffee.”

Phil smiled at Clint, but he let it be as tired and exasperated and affectionate as he felt. “That’s because I’m a caffeine addict and I need to have a coffee every two hours,” he explained.

“Oh.” Clint, apparently, did not take the wonders of caffeine very seriously. “Well, we’re going to dinner anyway.”

“Alright.”

“Tomorrow?”

“I can’t – the debate club is in the inter-school semi-final.” Clint opened his mouth, a teasing smile on his face like he was going to suggest that Phil play hooky. Phil shot that idea down with a firmly unimpressed look.

“Right,” Clint said, pulling back a little. “Debate club. Cool. What about Saturday?”

“Saturday works.”

“I’ll take you out somewhere nice.”

“It doesn’t have to be nice.”

“I’ll take you to the nicest place there is.”

Phil let the last of the tension out of his shoulders. If Clint wanted to have a date night, they could have a date night. “Alright.”

“Okay,” Clint said with a nod.

“Okay,” Phil echoed.

Phil and Clint stared at one another across Phil’s desk, and Phil enjoyed watching the subtle changes in Clint’s face as he realised what, exactly, he had talked himself into. There was a flash of something almost like panic that was quickly buried under an easy smile and a self-deprecating grin. He stood up and hooked his thumbs in the pockets of his jeans. “I guess I gotta go find out where fancy people go eat dinner.”

Phil smiled at him. After the week he’d had and the day he’d suffered through, it felt good to smile. “Have fun.”

Clint had been gone for all of five minutes when the fire alarm went off. Phil silently counted backwards from ten as he paused to lock his office and then kicked Nina off Farmville so she could be effectively evacuated. He couldn’t wait for the weekend.


End file.
